Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

THE ORWELL FOUNDATION AND
UCL FESTIVAL OF CULTURE PRESENT

A LIVE READING OF
ORWELL'S NINETEEN
EIGHTY-FOUR

#1984live
TUESDAY 6TH JUNE - ALL DAY - FREE

The UK’s first ever live start-to-finish
reading of Orwell’s Nineteen
Eighty-Four on Tuesday 6th June 2017,
9am until 10pm at Senate House, London WC1E 7HU.

Senate House was the inspiration for
Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’.

Bringing together a variety of voices,
politics and perspectives, the reading highlights Nineteen
Eighty-Four’s worldwide and contemporary
relevance.

Part of the UCL Festival of Culture 2017
a week-long festival, comprising talks, workshops and
exhibitions, set to challenge your thinking and offer new ways
of understanding our world.

Actors, writers, politicians, journalists,
academics and members of the public will read the book over
the course of a single day, two days before the UK General
Election and the 68th anniversary of the
publication of Nineteen
Eighty-Four on 8th June 1949.

The Orwell Foundation and UCL Festival of Culture are
delighted to announce a live, start-to-finish reading of Nineteen Eighty-Four
in Senate House, University of London. As Nineteen Eighty-Four has
risen to the top of bestseller charts all over the world, almost 70
years after its publication. Now, two days before the UK General
Election and for the first time in the UK, members of the public
will hear Nineteen
Eighty-Four read by a host of actors, writers,
journalists, politicians and members of the public over the course
of a single day in the centre of London. This unique event, part of
the UCL Festival of Culture 2017, will be free and open to the
public. The reading will begin at 9am and end around 10pm.

George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four was
written in 1948, just before he died of tuberculosis in University
College Hospital. Senate House – where Orwell’s wife worked
during the war – provided inspiration for the Ministry of Truth,
which Orwell so chillingly depicted in the novel. Nineteen Eighty-Four
became perhaps the most pervasively influential book of the
twentieth century, recently becoming a bestseller again. This
unique event offers the opportunity to hear Orwell’s seminal work
read aloud in the building which inspired the literary world’s most
fearsome (fictional) building.